[b]NZLARPs minutes 3 Nov 2014
Present:
Mikaere Curtis, Daena Schofield, Roelof van der Merwe, Walter Hamer, Prema Cottingham, Clare Stones
Meeting start: 7:40pm approx[/b]
Motion by Walter: Do we accept the minutes of the previous committee meeting?
Yes: Mikaere, Walter, Prema. Abstain: Clare
Motion by Walter: Do we approve that Roelof be appointed marketing officer?
2nd : Daena. Everyone voted yes except Roelof, who abstained.
Armageddon:
-
The stall went well – 42 people signed up expressing their interest.
-
We’d like to especially thank the following people:
Ryan Paddy, for organizing and project managing the stall.
Ellen Boucher, for setting up the stall.
Anna Klein, Roelof van der Merwe, Cameron Burns and Ellen Boucher –for working on the stall over multiple days, and for going above and beyond.
Jared Hansen, for co-ordinating the stall on Sunday.
Everyone else who helped out! -
The photoboards have been lost sometime since last Armageddon. We need to find them or replace them.
The stall was instead decorated with posters for upcoming LARPs used, and big photos. -
The stall shape was not ideal this year – usually we get a corner stall, but we took a bit longer to book it this time, so we got just a standard stall instead. Next time we should get a corner stall, as this means that people can easily see the posters and photos, and we don’t block them from view by accident.
-
At some points we actually had too many people at the stall – made it hard for people to see posters and pictures. Getting a corner stall next time round should resolve this as there will be more space.
-
The sign up forms had an email disclaimer saying we would only send one email to people who signed up. We think we should change this in future – it makes it hard to advertise future events because having a restriction like this means we can’t really build up our contact list. We need to change it in future to be less restrictive.
We’re thinking that to circumvent it this time, we will simply send them an email indicating we would like to add them to our mailing list for future larps, and requesting that they email us back to give us permission to do so. That way the contacts won’t be lost. -
It was great having two (three) places in Armageddon advertising LARP – NZLARPs, Crucible plus Frontier – meant that larp was advertised in two areas and from two different directions. Great coverage.
-
We snagged a free crate of knarly V from the V stall. We could raffle it, or sell at a convention – eg. Medusa.
Finance report:
- Mike Curtis has passed some receipts over to James.
- Anna has more receipts from Chimera for Walter and has almost completed the actuals.
- We discussed the budget for Speakeasy murder / Armageddon. The committee was thrilled to see that the estimated earnings from Speakeasy will cover most of the costs for the Armageddon stand.
Gear report:
- Candelabra and swinging doors and shed sold.
- Ryan needs some gear for Speakeasy Murder.
- Hannah has some gear from Stella Nova for us. We have yet to assess what they have given us, but Mike will assess it next weekend. We think there is a lot of cloth, that could be used as set dressing or for costumes.
- The pretty vintage clothes may especially be of use to Dry Spell.
- We may need some more plastic boxes.
- Action Point: Mike to go through gear from Stella Nova and assess.
Past larp events:
- Halloween Crucible game.
- In character picnic.
Discussion about briefing new players / NPCs at larps, and issues around cheating in games. Also around being careful about what information mills around after the game – it’s important not to project negativity to new players.
Upcoming events:
Speakeasy Murder: Saturday after committee meeting. The game is budgeted to cover game expenses and most of the Armageddon expenses, so we are very happy with this.
Ryan would like to borrow set dressing for the game.
Prema – suggests that we waive the gear costs, since Speakeasy is covering most of Armageddon anyway.
Mike – we should include it – good discipline to include it in.
The budgets for Armageddon and Speakeasy should also be split out. Need to include stall cost in Armageddon budget as well, so we can see them easily separately for future reference.
-> We decided that the gear hireage should be included in the budget, and that it would also be sensible to have allowance for glasses and carafes. With these additions the budget may end up making a small loss, however we are happy with that given that the game will draw in new larpers.
Prema: Motion: Accept Speakeasy Murder as a project, on proviso that gear fee is added. Defer finalizing Armageddon costs till next meeting.
Daena – seconded.
Accepted unanimously.
Prema / Walter:
Moonbright: The budgeted number of players have already signed up and paid. This is great, as the cost of the game is covered.
Walter: Discussion of surplus in terms of tax – we could pay storage upfront. It would offset the cash liability.
Mike – National committee should ask IRD to find out what is required in terms of not paying tax.
Prema – A bit of resurgence happening in terms of larps – we have Moonbright coming up, possibly 1001 nights, possible Hunter white wolf larp, Dryspell, Pirates and Cowboys larp that Anna is running.
We could also have a straight out fundraiser. Would also be good to have more one-off larps.
Dance of the Dawn – Daena hasn’t been able to find a venue. She is planning to postpone it until after Christmas – it will probably run in Feb or March. Need to find a space in timetable that doesn’t crash with Crucible or Anna’s Pirates and Cowboys game.
It’s a Gothic fairytale, so needs to be done in the evening.
Hall needs to be big enough for 7 couples to waltz. Walter suggests a school hall – possibly Michael Park Steiner School in Ellerslie? They have three halls, one which is a theatre type hall and two which are carpeted. Expecting to need to hire for 5 hours.
Horticultural centre might also make a good venue. It would also be OK to be on the same weekend as Moonbright or New World Changeling.
Council hall hire might be a bit expensive, however we have managed to get a discount with them in the past because we are non-profit.
• Need to add next Crucible game to NZLARPs calendar.
Aethercon:
Roelof: Should we market at Aethercon again?
Prema and Clare say yes – the people who attend are already “our type of people” – into costumes, characters etc.
It is slated to be in April this year.
Mike: Suggestion of doing a monthly mailer. Maybe Roelof could work with Ryan on this?
Newsletter:
Would be nice to put it on Diatribe so people can read it, even if they are not subscribed to our email list.
What is LARP – could do with a redesign.
First priority – migrate to new host.
Second – Content management system.
Christmas Picnic:
Anna Klein had the idea of having an OOC end of year picnic for NZLARPs. We have set up a facebook event for it.
Next meeting:
1st December.
Meeting closed: 8:50pm.